"Daily NewsMakers with Jeff Lytle" Top-level state politics and the future of Collier County economic development

Top-level state politics and the future of Collier County economic development are front and center on this week’s Naples Daily NewsMakers with Jeff Lytle program. Leo Ochs, Collier County manager, and Bruce Register, the county’s new economic development director, discuss what incentives Collier will need to compete for good, new employers, and whether Collier should pay existing employers to stay. Don Gaetz, Florida Senate president from the Pensacola area, discusses Medicaid expansion, education and ethics programs, and insurance reform. Find more videos at naplesnews.com/newsmakers.

Top-level state politics and the future of Collier County economic development are front and center on this week’s Naples Daily NewsMakers with Jeff Lytle program. Leo Ochs, Collier County manager, and Bruce Register, the county’s new economic development director, discuss what incentives Collier will need to compete for good, new employers, and whether Collier should pay existing employers to stay. Don Gaetz, Florida Senate president from the Pensacola area, discusses Medicaid expansion, education and ethics programs, and insurance reform. Find more videos at naplesnews.com/newsmakers.

Top-level state politics and the future of Collier County economic development are front and center on this week’s Naples Daily NewsMakers with Jeff Lytle program. Leo Ochs, Collier County manager, and Bruce Register, the county’s new economic development director, discuss what incentives Collier will need to compete for good, new employers, and whether Collier should pay existing employers to stay. Don Gaetz, Florida Senate president from the Pensacola area, discusses Medicaid expansion, education and ethics programs, and insurance reform. Find more videos at naplesnews.com/newsmakers.

Top-level state politics and the future of Collier County economic development are front and center on this week's Naples Daily NewsMakers with Jeff Lytle program airing Sunday morning at 10 on ABC7.

Leo Ochs, Collier County manager, and Bruce Register, the county's new economic development director, discuss what incentives Collier will need to compete for good, new employers, and whether Collier should pay existing employers to stay.

Lytle: We see partisan politics gridlocked in Washington. How in Tallahassee will you be able to separate politics from policy?

Gaetz: Well, you can't. Adlai Stevenson said if you take the politics out of politics you don't have any government. The fact is there are always politics; that's how we settle things short of war. But in Tallahassee, more than 90 percent of bills pass with a bipartisan majority. It's rare when there's a partisan debate. The ethics legislation that we're moving through the Florida Senate now is being done on a bipartisan basis to dramatically raise the standard of public conduct at the local government and state government level. We're doing it in a bipartisan way.

We're doing other things in a bipartisan way as we approach health care. We have a bipartisan committee looking at the application of Obamacare. Now, there will be partisan debates, and there should be, because people have different philosophies. But as much as possible that shouldn't be personal.

Washington is like the Hatfields and the McCoys. They're totally dysfunctional. They can't pass a Mother's Day resolution without finger pointing. We're not that bad. We are people of principle, but we reach across the aisle to try to get things done.

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Leo Ochs and Bruce Register

Lytle: What will the challenges be with getting together the opinions of this Collier County Commission, which we've seen can be pretty dynamic in their ... sometimes it's hard to predict what they're going to do. And you're the county manager. How will you go about shepherding those sometimes divergent points of view?

Ochs: Well, they are divergent in many regards. But I have found, Jeff, in this particular instance, every single commissioner is very supportive of economic development and growing our local economy and creating more jobs. I think that was evident which I took the proposal to form this new department back in June of 2012 to the board. There was unanimous support by the county commission, and there continues to be strong support. The devil is in the details certainly when we get to how much money to spend and what programs to pursue first, second and third.

And I think that's why Bruce and I are both spending a great deal of time in the community trying to define from their perspective what they want the product to be. And I think that the board has a good sense that we vetted this properly with business community and the local community, it will be easier for them to get behind the proposal.